Phil Coulson and Form R358
by hannahsoapy
Summary: Dating is difficult. It's even more so when the person you're dating is Harry Potter, the Girl-Who-Lived.


A/N: If you're just now joining us, please be warned that some of this might not make much sense without having read the previous story: Phil Coulson and the Master of Death. Just pop on over to my profile real quick and read it, it's not _horribly_ long.

Thank you to everybody who has waited so patiently for an update! I finally had a reprieve from school and was able to knock this out! :)

* * *

There had been no actual planning on either of their parts, so there was a fair amount of dithering over where they were going to go.

It was easily decided that they wouldn't go to the wizarding part of New York, since Harry was wary of being recognized, although she made it clear she just wanted to avoid interruptions and attention; she wasn't afraid of being seen with him.

They ended up at a café that Phil was familiar with, since neither of them were particularly hungry for a meal.

The barista greeted Phil (by name) and Harry turned to him with a teasing smirk, "Come here often?"

"The scones are my weakness," he admitted to her with a guilty smile, and she laughed. Phil got his usual (a honey lavender latte) while Harry just asked for tea, and he requested the scone of the day for both of them as he pulled his card out of his pocket.

"Oh, no," Harry protested, fumbling in her bag. "I asked you out, I should –"

But the barista had already taken Phil's card and swiped it, with a conspiratorial wink at him.

"Oh, very well," she said. "But I'll pay next time."

"Of course," he said, although he had no intentions of letting her pay, and had mostly only heard the bit about there being a 'next time'.

They found a seat at one of the little tables scattered around the place, and then there was an awkward silence.

Every first date had to have at least one awkward silence, Phil mused, as the barista finally brought out their drinks and warmed scones. He was just gathering the courage to ask her one of those horribly inane 'first-date' questions, like 'What are some fun facts about you?' when she beat him to it.

"Where did you grow up?"

"Here, for the most part, in a small wizarding community in Great Neck Gardens," Phil said, sipping his latte with a sigh of contentment.

"For the most part?" Harry asked curiously. Phil nodded. It was evident that he was going to spend a lot of this date talking about himself, but he had to admit that he did already know quite a bit about Harry, since her life was one of public speculation at every opportunity.

"My mother was an ambassador for MACUSA, and my father was Special Forces. They met in Cambodia, but that's all I know; the rest is still classified. They'd planned on both retiring after I got into Ilvermorny, and leaving to travel the world, but…"

"You never got a letter. Oh, I'm so sorry, Phil."

Phil smiled at her and shrugged a little. "It was alright," he said. "They put off retiring for another two years, and then pulled me out of no-maj school and took me along with them."

His parents had told him, after the letter failed to show, that they had begun to suspect he was a squib a few months before. He was lucky, he supposed, in the parents he'd got, because neither of them particularly cared that their only child wasn't a wizard. His mother insisted that she was glad he wasn't because 'that school would've turned you into a close-minded bigot, Philip.'

Well, Phil didn't know about that, but it was true that he got a much more culturally rich education.

"How exciting," Harry exclaimed. "Where did you go?"

"Cambodia and Vietnam, first." His parents had both had friends there that they hadn't seen in years. "Then we wandered around Asia for a while until a friend of my father's invited him to Paraguay, and we didn't leave South America until I started applying to colleges."

That had been difficult. His mother had been all for Phil going to an Ivy League, and his father had pushed for military academy, going so far as to get Phil's nomination from the vice president. Phil had eventually settled on West Point, much to his mother's disappointment, although she tried not to show it. Phil was sure he would have enjoyed being at an Ivy League school, but he'd already decided on his career path at that point, and he felt much more appreciated there than he thought he would've been anywhere else.

"Dare I ask how many languages you speak?" Harry's voice interrupted his inner ramblings.

"I never really got the hang of Khmer," Phil said, shaking his head in regret. "My Vietnamese and Mandarin is passable, but I speak Spanish and Portuguese fairly well, and I've begun learning Russian."

"And here I am with only one language under my belt," Harry laughed, as Phil reddened a little. He hadn't really meant to sound like he was bragging.

"You forgot Parseltongue," he pointed out.

"I suppose," she said, shrugging as if she didn't really think it counted. "Where was your favorite place to live, then?"

Phil couldn't help getting a little carried away as he began to describe Phnom Penh, and all the trouble he got into there as a teenager, but Harry never seemed to get bored, laughing her way through most of his escapades.

They could have continued talking all day, but unfortunately, the coffeeshop didn't stay open late, and they were forced to leave by the (very apologetic) barista when they closed. They wandered down the street after that, without much direction, until Harry turned a regretful look on him and said that she really had to go.

"Oh," said Phil, disappointed. "Well, could I walk you to the Woolworth building? Or wherever you're staying?"

Harry looked down at her feet, and Phil had a horrible moment where he was sure she was about to tell him that it had been a terrible date and they were better off as colleagues.

"You can walk me to the nearest apparition point," she finally said. "I'm back to my flat."

Phil nodded eagerly in relief.

"Wait, you're apparating? To London?"

"My flat's in Leyton, actually."

She was very obviously deflecting.

"You'll splinch yourself," Phil said calmly, hiding how much turmoil he was really feeling. He had no idea what she wasn't telling him, but he knew it would set a bad precedent if they kept things from each other (unless it was classified, in which case he completely understood).

Harry sighed. "I won't," she said definitively. "I, er, well, I think it's to do with the whole –" she waved her hand vaguely, "– thing, you know?"

Phil actually did not know for a few seconds, and then it hit him. She meant the 'Master of Death' thing. That did explain the deflecting; she'd been reluctant to talk about it earlier, as well.

"Wait, you've tested this?"

"Hermione's idea," Harry shrugged. "We tested quite a few things, actually. I was having some control issues with spells. Turns out my core is just… kinda off the charts now. I went all the way to Australia and back and hardly felt it."

She glanced at him as she finished speaking, appearing to be a bit nervous.

She _was_ nervous, Phil realized.

"In that case," he said, "I'm leaving for Italy tomorrow; would you like to meet me in Venice after it's all wrapped up?"

Harry seemed utterly speechless for a moment or two, but she recovered quickly.

"My, my, Phil," she smiled, "Venice for a second date? How could I refuse?"

Phil was embarrassed to find himself blushing a little and couldn't bring himself to say anything to that.

"See you in Venice, Phil!" she said, laughingly, as she twisted, disapparating without a sound.

Phil walked away from the apparition point with a little extra bounce in his step.

* * *

Not all of their dates went as smoothly as that first one.

Their second date ended up happening in Zagreb, instead of Venice, because some of the intelligence they'd relied on had been shaky, and they'd had to do a cross-continent chase to catch their target, which ended in Croatia.

It was a lovely city, despite its not being Venice, and a lovely date, although Harry had been called back to the Ministry barely an hour in, due to an attempted break-in at Azkaban.

Their third date he'd had to cancel because there'd been an emergency in Bahrain that had ended with Agent May's resigning from field work.

Their rescheduled date turned out to be more like an amateur therapy session for Phil, still struggling with the loss of his coworker. It wasn't like he hadn't lost people before, but this one was a little more personal.

Phil felt a little badly about it, although Harry insisted she wasn't bothered by it at all.

"You forget, my job is similarly unpredictable," she told him. "And I think we're both equally as invested in them."

Well, he really couldn't deny that. Barton had always used to tease him that he was married to his job. (Of course, the archer now spent considerable energy attempting to discover how his and Harry's relationship was going, without much success.)

As long as they were on the same page, Phil supposed it was alright.

"Do you have any wizard friends?" she asked him, some minutes later. "I mean, you said you'd grown up in a wizarding community."

"One," Phil admitted. "Audrey. We were neighbors growing up. She's a cellist now, actually."

Harry hummed, and then sat up straighter. "Audrey? Like Audrey the cellist for The Portents?"

"Er, yes?" Phil said. Harry's mouth dropped open a little.

"You're serious?"

"Do you want tickets?"

She turned wide eyes on him. "Do I want tickets," she scoffed incredulously. "Merlin, they're only my favorite band!"

Phil felt just a tad smug as he pulled out his phone. "I'll text her," he said.

Audrey always had tickets for him if he wanted them, and he usually went to at least one of her concerts when they were on tour. If he wasn't mistaken, they were doing several shows in New York in a few weeks. This would be the first time he asked for a second ticket, however, and he knew Audrey would be all over him with excitement.

Phil's phone screen lit up with Director Fury's face just before he slid it back in his pocket, and he looked up at her guiltily.

"Go on, then," Harry waved her hand. "I thought you were lying when you said you had nothing to do this afternoon."

It was true, but Phil hadn't felt bad about cancelling a few meetings.

"It's probably something to do with Barton," Phil muttered as he hit the accept call button, causing Harry to smother a laugh into her tea.

"Phil, where is your goddamn archer?"

"Ideally, at base," Phil sighed. "But I suppose you're about to tell me he's not."

"He didn't show for his medical appointment twenty minutes ago."

Phil rolled his eyes, taking advantage of the fact that Fury couldn't see him. "When does he ever show up on time for those?"

"You usually drag him in for them."

"True," Phil said with a grimace, and an apologetic glance at Harry. "I have two theories: either he went to see Romanoff, or he's following me."

Romanoff was at a separate Shield base, going through some mandatory testing and training. Phil was sure that she'd be out soon, but Barton had been particularly restless whenever she was mentioned, which was very frequently, due to her notoriety. Phil suspected (though he couldn't definitively prove) that Barton had snuck in to see her multiple times already, and he was almost certain the archer had just gone there yesterday, which meant he'd followed him to his date.

Harry had been surreptitiously looking around, and when her eyes paused, Phil followed her gaze, almost immediately spotting Barton sitting at a table outside and trying to appear disinterested.

"We've made him," he reported to the Director.

"Well, bring him in," Fury barked, and then after a short pause, "We?"

"Yes, you interrupted a meeting I was having with Auror Potter."

He knew the ever-so-slight pause he made before saying 'meeting' had given him away even before Fury said anything.

"We're going to have a discussion about that," Fury growled. "Now I owe Maria twenty, godammit."

"I wasn't aware you wanted relationship status updates, sir," Phil said cheekily.

"I do when you're dating Harry fucking Potter, Cheese!"

Harry had been watching him, and listening (Fury wasn't exactly quiet, even over the phone) with obvious delight, and at Fury's last sentence, she clapped a hand over her mouth to prevent her laughter.

"Would you like daily updates?" Phil said dryly.

Fury scoffed. "No, but I do need form R358 on my desk by tomorrow."

"I'll get it to you as soon as it is applicable," Phil said, unable to meet Harry's curious gaze.

"'_As soon as it is applicable'_?!"

Phil winced and pulled the phone away from his ear.

"You know what? Don't bring in Barton. You have work to do. My desk, tomorrow."

With that, Fury hung up, leaving no time for Phil to protest at all. Still trying to avoid meeting Harry's eyes, he glanced back at Barton again, only to see him check his phone, look up, shoot him a smirk and a wink, and then leave.

Fury had definitely texted him. Crap.

"So," Harry drawled, drawing Phil's attention away from his troublemaking archer. "What is form R358?"

"Relationship status form," Phil told her, purposely vague. "For level two relationships between SHIELD agents and wizards."

Harry was clearly not that impressed with his answer, given her raised eyebrows.

"And what, precisely, constitutes a level two relationship?"

That was really an excellent look she had there, Phil thought. It probably came in very useful when she wanted to terrify new Auror recruits.

"Well," he forced himself to say calmly, "a level two relationship is defined as one that has progressed past level one, although it may still include all elements of a level one relationship, it also contains physical affection."

"I see," Harry was nodding slowly.

Phil grew more nervous the longer the silence stretched on. His poker face, usually impeccable, was ruined by the blush that spread across his cheeks as she continued to stare at him with those damned green eyes.

"He can't really tell me what to do," he finally said. "I mean, well, he _can_, but not about… this. If you don't want to –"

"Do you have tea at your place?"

"Of course," Phil said automatically, blindsided by Harry's question and the realization that she was laughing at him.

"Alright, let's go, then."

"You – what?"

She smirked at him. "Don't you want to turn in that form?"

Phil could really only think of one answer to that.

.

.

.

(Fury wore a horribly smug look on his face all the next day after Phil turned in form R358, but he couldn't care less.)


End file.
